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Inside Story

Stuart Palley’s environmental photojournalism career follows a very natural cycle — it heats up (a lot) during the fire season.

Many photographers chase wildfires across the West every summer, especially as they become a bigger and more destructive player in global climate change. But in the last three years, Palley has set himself apart by developing a unique style that might best be described as nocturnal fire landscape photography.

Deadly fires that swept Tennessee are harbingers of a new normal for these massive burns, driven by drought and climate factors to become a year-round, multi-region phenomenon. Our in-depth backgrounder offers dozens of resources, plus tips and ideas for improving your wildfire coverage.

The Congressional Research Service produces expert nonpartisan backgrounders on many subjects of interest to environment and energy journalists. But Congress won't release them. Thanks to the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, you can read them now.

Many local and state agencies, set up under a 1986 federal law to inform the public, are a great resource for stories at the local, state, and even national level. Some don't — often based on a fear that terrorists could use the information to harm people. Here's how to find yours.

For environmental reporters, pipelines are a frequent source of major news stories. Enterprising journalists may want to find nearby pipelines before they leak or blow up. The National Pipeline Mapping System is a basic tool that can help.

Reflexive secrecy has been a hallmark of government efforts to deal with highly hazardous chemical facilities in recent decades. Another reminder of that secrecy came in an April 11, 2016, piece in Greenwire by Sam Pearson. Photo: The fertilizer plant in West, Texas, that exploded in 2013, killing 15 people, by Shane Torgerson, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Project on Government Oversight FOIA'd FEMA/DHS in 2006 for documents that might reveal hanky-panky with billions of dollars in Hurricane Katrina recovery contracts. In December 2015, DHS finally wrote POGO to say that disclosing the records would constitute an "unwarranted invasion of privacy."